Five favorite sports stories of the year: 1) The Detroit Lions go 0-16

A New Year's feature in which your authors break down their favorite sports moments, memories and stories of the year. As a bonus, we'll throw in a few tidbits about ourselves and the year 2008 - not that you care or anything.

I had a good amount of fun chronicling the Lions season in Road to History. I am sure the players and coaches had zero fun this year, and I tried to keep that in mind throughout.

I take no particular pride in seeing before anyone else did that this team was destined to have a winless season. I still love the Lions, I will still watch them even if they are lousy again next year and, as soon as I start making more than minimum wage, I will even pay to go to their games even if they lose all the time.

The whole point of rooting for history was to simply give these guys, who were trying very hard every week and put in an unworkable situation, something to be remembered for. In 30 years, someone will be calling Travis Fisher or Stephan Peterman to talk about being a part of the only 0-16 team in NFL history. Would they rather be remembered for something else? I am sure of it. But how many of us do something so well -- in this case losing -- that we can be remembered decades after the fact?

We even had some feuds along the way. Rosenberg and Killer ... it is a New Year, let's let bygones be bygones, eh? Oh, who am I kidding ... I will take these grudges to my grave.

But the whole point of this is that 2008 will forever be known as the year of the Lions, and we should all celebrate that.